Tuesday, April 3, 2012

My wife had a couple of long nights in a row with concert rehearsals and she told me in advance for her night off she wanted comfort food.

Few foods are as comforting as chicken soup so I quickly settled on that for dinner. Since she gave me warning, I pulled some of our frozen chicken from Costco out of the freezer the night before and put it in the fridge to thaw.

When I got home from work, I pulled out our big soup pot and drizzled in some EVOO. I then added a generous helping of Christopher Ranch Chopped Garlic we get from Costco and a small palmful of rosemary I crumbled in my hand. Meanwhile, my wonderful wife chopped:

1 small yellow onion

2 stalks of celery

1 cup of baby carrots

These were added to the pot and I sauteed them until the onions were tender. While this was going on my wife thawed out a couple of quarts of homemade chicken stock and added that to the pot while I tossed in the somewhat thawed chicken.

She then rinsed a half cup Nature's Earthly Choice Quinoa and threw that in the pot with about a cup of boiling water. We brought everything to a boil then turned it to a simmer for about 15 minutes to cook the quinoa.

This dish was absolutely a home run! It was a delicious, healthy, hearty chicken soup with lots of comfort but it also had a distinct character.

Rosemary and chicken are a natural combination and while parsley is a great seasoning for chicken soup, the rosemary gave it a bit of panache. Also, the garlic helped give it a more varied and hearty flavor profile.

And finally, the use of quinoa instead of noodles gave it a twist without making it so out of the ordinary it was no longer comfort food.

And by using all the foods we had in a cupboard, fridge and freezer, this went together in very little time with minimal effort.

In every way this dish was a success:

Taste

Ease

Cost

Comfort

I am positive we will do something like this again and it only reaffirms our strategy for rotisserie chickens.